What's on in the area

Welsh National Opera Spring Tour

Mar 2009 (annual)

Cost: £7.50-£39.50

Hours: 7.15pm; Eugene Onegin 7pm

Welsh National Opera returns to the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton for its annual spring visit with three major revivals: Mozart's Magic Flute, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Verdi's Falstaff, now with Bryn Terfel reprising the title role.

RSC and Royal Court director Dominic Cooke's production of The Magic Flute stars Russell Thomas as Tamino in search of Pamina (Rebecca Evans), the daughter of Lare Meloy's Queen of the Night. Teamed up with bird-catcher Papageno (Neal Davies), they meet Sarastro (David Solar) and submit to his secret society's initiation to prove themselves worthy of their loves. Anthony Negus conducts (25 & 28 March) and Julian Crouch from Improbable Theatre (responsible for Shockheaded Peter - A Junk Opera) is the designer.

James Macdonald directs Tchaikovsky's "lyric scenes" Eugene Onegin with Garry Magee taking over the title role and with Nuccia Focile as Tatyana, hopelessly love with Onegin, until he shows his callousness. After a scandal, Onegin disapears and when he returns, he finds Tatyana married to a much-older man and now it is her turn to rebuff his advances. Alexander Polianichko conducts a cast that also includes Anna Burford as Olga, Paul Charles Clarke as Lensky and Brindley Sherratt as Prince Gremin (26 & 29 March).

The final revival is Peter Stein's acclaimed production of Verdi's Falstaff, not only the last of his three Shakespeare operas but also his valedictory work. First seen in 1988, it makes a very welcome return to the repertoire. Bryn Terfel sings the title role (replacing an indisposed Roberto de Candia). Falstaff is the womanising Knight who gets his comeuppance at the hands of the merry wives of Windsor - Janice Watson's Alice Ford and Imeldra Drumm's Meg Page, aided by Anne-Marie Owens' Mistress Quickly. The cast also comprises Christopher Purves as Ford, Claire Ormshaw and Rhys Meirion as young lovers Nannetta and Fenton, Anthony Mee as fellow suitor Dr Caius and Neil Jenkins and Julian Close as Falstaff's henchmen Bardolph and Pistol. Michal Klauza conducts (27 March).

Welsh National Opera, based in Cardiff, was founded in 1944. It is the only company to have won the Royal Philharmonic Society Opera award three years running (1998-2000) and in 2004 - its Diamond Jubilee year - it moved to its new home, the Wales Millennium Centre.

Mayflower Theatre